Survey facts & stats

Question 1

About how many countries does Gallup's global World Poll cover today?

Accepted Answer

about 160. That's meant to represent more than 98% of the world's adult population.

Question 2

By September 2017, about how many chatbots had been created on Facebook Messenger, a channel some brands use for quick polls?

Accepted Answer

about 100,000. That's up from about 30,000 just a year earlier.

Question 3

In a 2010 study of 100,000 online surveys, what happened to the drop-off in response rates once a survey reached 40 questions, compared with 10 questions?

Accepted Answer

drop-off slowed (only about 10% total reduction). People who stick around for a long survey tend to keep going rather than quitting partway.

Question 4

To cut a poll's margin of error from about +/-3% down to about +/-1%, roughly how much bigger does the sample need to be?

Accepted Answer

about 10x (1,000 to 10,000). Shrinking the margin of error gets expensive fast, since it takes far more respondents for each extra point of precision.

Survey facts & stats

Going deeper

To cut a poll's margin of error from about +/-3% down to about +/-1%, roughly how much bigger does the sample need to be?

Expert level

About how many countries does Gallup's global World Poll cover today?

By September 2017, about how many chatbots had been created on Facebook Messenger, a channel some brands use for quick polls?

In a 2010 study of 100,000 online surveys, what happened to the drop-off in response rates once a survey reached 40 questions, compared with 10 questions?